Thursday, September 07, 2017

The coming food shortage

The world could be facing a food shortage in just 10 years, according to an agricultural data technology company.

Gro Intelligence founder and chief executive Sara Menker says previous calculations about food supply have focused on mass and weight, not nutritional value — and this is where things become problematic.

Previously the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization has predicted that the world’s population will reach 9.1 billion by 2050 and the world needs to produce 70 percent more food to feed all these extra people.

But at a TEDGlobal event Arusha, Tanzania, Menker said if you look at the nutritional value of current food production instead, global food security is more tenuous than originally thought.

According to Quartz, Menker believes the year 2023 will be the crossover point when we will no longer be able to produce enough food to feed a growing population.

She has estimated that by 2027, there could be a 214 trillion-calorie deficit, which is the equivalent of 379 million Big Macs.

Demand will be driven by population and economic growth in China, India and African countries.

If this is correct, then soon we will all be expected to make sacrifices in order to subsidize runaway population growth in China, India, and Africa.

It makes more sense to isolate those countries. Stop sending them food and technology, and stop allowing them to export their population problems. They will eventually learn to solve their own problems.